the 16 are wonderful. anything they do will be guarenteed to be wonderful. have you tried the westminster cathedral recordings of palestrina and victoria? those are my personal faves.

By the way, John, welcome to the forum. We are always delighted when someone like you joins our ranks. Coming to the Colloquium?

^I forgot to mention, I have numerous albums by The Hilliard Ensemble, and they're great when they perform the English, Italian, and French madrigals/motets. But you guys are right, it would sound different 500+ years ago.

Anyhow, I don't think I can come to the Colloquium; I just "discovered" this site yesterday, and just read stuff on that. I would love to though, it seems so interesting, but I guess the spots are filled already.

For those not totally 'gone over' to the sound of boy sopranos, almost anything by the Gloria Dei Cantores, esp their Gregorian chant recordings under the direction of the esteemed Dr. Mary Berry. And their recordings of Anglican Chant- They are wonderful. I keep them in the car always.
And Westminster Choir College- not for chant though- just great choral singing.

Donna

Mr. Osborn, I second that!
Donna

Mike, I think it was I who advanced Chanticleer. I've found that the intonation issues were more evident in their early recordings (25 years ago? Wow, time flies.) Having continued to purchase their recordings over that time, and hearing them live a number of times as well, Joseph Jennings has consistently managed to find male sopranos who effortless hit the mark all the time. I can't think of a live concert of theirs that I walked out not feeling astounded by both their precision and their aesthetic understanding of the repertoire. Once, in Chicago, they sang Tavener's "Lamb." You sing that out of tune, it's over. Nope, they nailed it.

Hi John, welcome to the forum. As a native Chicagoan and professional singer who relocated to the UK many years ago, I am intimately familiar with the choral scene in this country. The Sixteen are a brilliant choir, no doubt about it. I've heard them in concert many times and count among my friends and colleagues some of its members. There are a number of other choirs in this country, perhaps not so well known, but also worth hearing.

An important point to remember is that the sound of professional mixed choirs singing Renaissance sacred music of the type of the Sixteen and Tallis Scholars, is a comparatively new sound. This music in the Renaissance would have actually sounded quite different because choirs were all male, using either boys on the top line (England and a few continental choirs mainly in the north), or, on the continent, high countertenors (falsettists) on top, with high tenors, baritones and low basses taking the parts we now know of as "alto, tenor and bass", which was the normal practice over all of Europe. An exception was Italy where the high "castrato" voice came to be used on the top line, rather than high falsettists prevalent in other countries, who, of course, were not castrati. Especially in Spain at this time, the role of boys was normally only to sing plainsong in Masses and Offices, the polyphony being sung by the adult men. (Plainsong then was regarded as the way to teach boys to sing!) So with this very different sort of choir than what we are used to hearing now, the pitch of the music would also have been lower: most experts agree that it probably sounded as much as a fourth lower, deduced by various interpretations of the clefs in use in the original sources. The resulting sonority was very different, weighted towards the lower voices, the bass parts being very low indeed, and the high tenors really at the top of their range as "altos", the high countertenors floating above as "sopranos".

There are a few professional groups around who perform Renaissance sacred music at the lower pitch: The Hilliard Ensemble, Chanticleer, the Cardinall's Music, and when Andrew Parrott made his recordings of this music in the 80's and 90's he used all male choirs too. And there is a brand new ensemble forming in London now, that will be 12 professional male singers, intent on performing this wonderful music at the original pitch and trying to recapture that sonority. I've conducted such a group a few times and the sound of a group of men singing this music at low pitch is stunning. Not to take anything away from the Sixteen's wonderful top line, of course. Both approaches are valid. When this new London group has made its first recordings (Spanish sacred music), I will let everyone on the forum know!

Richard Childress here. I enjoyed this article, and I hope this new low-voice group could well incorporate some boy trebles on occasion. There was some experimentation with this back in 1998 when a group I was working with did some pieces where 6 boys from Winchester Cathedral joined with the low voice choir in polyphony. It was quite an unusual sound, the boys singing low in their voices and the countertenors singing high. The person advising this new group is Bruno Turner and we're looking forward to doing some wonderful new discoveries.

Richard, please say hello to Bruno for me. He is contributing an article to a book I am working on and has been a wonderful help in some other research.

As for the low pitch. I'm aware of the downward transposition of high-clef pieces. They just don't make much sense where they are written, but for "normal" clefs? That really puts everything in the basement. Most C1, C3, C4, F4 clef arrangements have the basses already singing low G's and occasionally an F. I was under the impression that theorists advocated an upward transposition of a step for these works.

Of course, the theorists give suggested transpositions and one must remember that in Venice, for example, organ pitch was around A460 c. 1600. In the end, a director must choose the best pitch level for the group. I'm always intrigued by the pieces that are difficult to slot, even with an all male group. It brings up very interesting questions about the makeup of the group that composer was imagining or working with. Also, have you noticed how most Spanish polyphony fits well into the range of the alto shawm? Very suggestive.

Yes, indeed, the use of wind instruments in 16th c. Spain is well documented. John, I don't have very many Sixteen CD's, but one I love from the early days of the group is Monteverdi's six part mass "in illo tempore". It's a work of absolute virtuosity, cheerful and radiant. I absolutely adore Monteverdi, but I'd be hard pressed to name an absolute favourite composer from this period. I love all of it.

I think a low-voiced choir generally comes closer that the sound world of the 16th century, a few pieces or traditions notwithstanding. England is still a can or worms with regard to performing pitch, it will be endlessly debated.